


Currents

by ncfan



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Death, Developing Relationship, F/M, Gen, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-23 22:06:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/931604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncfan/pseuds/ncfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aredhel in Sirion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Currents

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to write an AU oneshot, where Aredhel never tried to leave Gondolin before its Fall, and she and Eöl meet in Sirion instead of in Nan Elmoth, where their relationship develops in a significantly less creepy way than it did in canon. Other things happen in here as well.

_She chose to stay, and Aredhel's never once regretted that decision, not until she lays eyes on his face, broken ad bloody. She finds him in the rubble, and this is how he looks. Her brother's eyes are dimming fast, and it takes him a long moment indeed to recognize her. What it takes, indeed, is Aredhel wiping the blood away from Turgon's face, trying in vain to stem the flow._

" _Irissë…" he chokes out at last. "Itarillë… where…"_

" _Calm, brother. I will take care of her. Haven't I always done so?"_

_Perhaps he's smiling as he dies, but mostly, he is broken, just as this city is broken, and Aredhel finds her niece and her family, and they take the survivors and flee. There is no hope of repelling the invaders. Gondolin is lost._

-0-0-0-

It amazes Aredhel how quickly Eärendil bounced back from the shock and the trauma of losing his home, but she has never claimed to have much insight into the hearts and minds of children, so she supposes that her niece's child might have simply pushed it to the back of his mind, and isn't dealing with it anymore. That's probably for the best. Aredhel knows to hug crying children, but even after all these centuries of life she really hasn't discovered how to deal with them beyond that, not without said child making the first move.

Tuor has an odd fascination with ships and ship-building, something he shares with Círdan the Sindarin shipwright and Lord of Balar, and something he also shares with his young son. Círdan has arrived in the quays of Sirion just an hour or so ago; Tuor and Idril left to greet him as soon as they became aware of his arrival, and Aredhel volunteered to finish up with their work, and take Eärendil with her to meet up with them once she was done.

They walk up the Sun-drenched streets of Sirion, or rather, Aredhel watches and does her best to keep her eye on her grand-nephew as he speeds down the street in front of her. They've really not gotten far from the palace where the Noldorin and Sindarin Lords somewhat uneasily coexist, but already Eärendil's acting as though he's never seen any of these shops before and as though he absolutely _must_ see what's inside of them.

Eärendil's bouncing golden head slips out of sight as he turns a corner. "Eärendil, wait for me!" Aredhel calls after him, breaking into a run to keep up with her nephew. Her bushy hair, wound sloppily around the back of her head with a length of white cloth, starts coming out of its haphazard twist. Idril would never forgive her if something happened to him, and frankly Aredhel would never forgive herself the same offense.

Turning down the street reveals Eärendil to be perfectly alright, though somewhat miffed at being shooed out of a smithy by the blacksmith in question, back out into the pedestrians milling about on the white flagstones. The blacksmith wears a hood over his face and blinks crossly up at the sky, clearly not at all fond of the bright sunlight pouring down over him. He catches her eye as she approaches and nods, before turning his attention back to Eärendil. "Young lads shouldn't wander about in a place of fire and hot iron," he mutters in Sindarin, frowning down upon Eärendil. "Especially not if he's not the smith's apprentice."

Eärendil stares up at him uncomprehendingly, brow furrowed. He knows some Sindarin—learning it's been a necessity in this city full of Sindar and Edain, all of whom speak the Sindarin language—but his grasp of the tongue is incomplete at best and he doesn't really understand anything more complex than simple sentences. It's hardly surprising, Aredhel supposes, that he wouldn't understand what the smith is telling him.

"He says that you shouldn't be wandering around in a smithy," Aredhel tells her nephew quietly, this time in Quenya. "And I agree with him; it's dangerous, Eärendil." She tucks her arm around her nephew's shoulders all the while.

Eärendil smiles sweetly up at her, a look of not entirely absolute contrition coming up over his face. "Sorry, Auntie."

Aredhel doesn't particularly like it when Eärendil calls her 'Auntie.' 'Aunt Irissë' will do quite fine for her, and 'Auntie' makes her feel like a decrepit old adaneth. But she remembers that, when Eärendil first began to speak, he would call Idril 'Mama' and Tuor 'Papa', Turgon 'Grandfather', much to his delight, and how long it took them all to stop him calling Aredhel 'Grandmother.' She is not Eärendil's grandmother and has no desire to strip Elenwë of that particular distinction; Aredhel prefers being called 'Auntie' to that, so she doesn't scold him.

The smith's lip twitches, and Aredhel realizes that he knows Quenya well enough to ought to have been able to simply say so to Eärendil, and avoid all of this. She frowns sharply at him, and realizes that she recognizes the smith, and one look at the way his gaze grows harder at the sight of her says that he recognizes her as well.

This is one of the Sindarin Lords, Eöl, she thinks his name is, who for whatever reason has chosen to take up residence in a small house out in town instead of at court. When the Gondolindrim came to Sirion seeking shelter, the Sindarin Lords at first barred them entry, needing to deliberate on whether or not to allow the Gondolindrim, kin of the Kinslayers who had driven them from their own home, into the Havens. It had come down to a vote, and the decision was that they _would_ let them in, but to this day Aredhel finds that she gets on better with the nobles whose choice she does _not_ know. If she knows for a fact that they voted not to let them in, she is constantly irritated with them and their willingness to let refugees starve in the wilderness. If she knows that they voted to let them stay, then the memory of pity rankles.

Aredhel does not know how Eöl voted, which she supposes makes him a fair sight better than certain other people she has to deal with. Though that could just be because he's only been at court once since they arrived here.

"I hope that my nephew did not cause you any trouble, sir," Aredhel remarks lightly, speaking very deliberately in Quenya.

Standing beneath the shaded awning of his home and smithy, Eöl answers, just as deliberately in Sindarin, "None at all, mistress."

Eärendil looks from one to the other, distinctly confused, and even more when his of late rather grim aunt actually grins briefly at the Sindarin blacksmith before urging him on down the street for the quays.

-0-0-0-

Even when the world is falling apart and it seems as though they'll all be swallowed up by the Dark eventually, there apparently must still be feasts and functions for the court to attend. Some sort of Sindarin autumn festivals in this case, but though Aredhel has not been in much of a mood for festivities since the Fall, this time, she's at least grateful to have something to take her mind off of all that's gone on, and all that still needs to be done in the city.

Aredhel mills aimlessly about, smiling slightly as she watches Idril persuade Tuor (no great dancer) into dancing a short jig around the room that quickly ends with him out of breath and the smiles fading from Aredhel and Idril's faces. Eärendil is at one of the serving tables, sneaking bits of candied apples, one of which he passes to another child nearby. They crawl under the skirts of the table to devour their ill-gotten gains. Aredhel remembers when she would do things like that with certain cousins of hers, and the smile briefly returns to her face, only to be replaced with a small, pained grimace, to recall exactly what became of those cousins.

Another sight makes her blink.

The little High Queen of the Sindar, Elwing Dior's daughter, holds court out of this palace, though you can't really call what the child does "holding court." She's entirely too young to assume most of the duties of the Queen of the Sindar, and those duties that would be hers are for the moment carried out by Oropher, his wife Duileth and their son Thranduil (Though how useful Thranduil is, considering how often he can be found drunk or at least tipsy, can be considered questionable).

But there are some things Elwing can do, and these things she does with single-minded (if somewhat blank-eyed) seriousness. Tonight, Aredhel finds it odd to see a smile on Eöl's dour face as he kneels down in front of the little Queen and kisses her hand, says something in a low (or low _er_ ) voice in response to her little piping voice greeting him. Eöl's idea of dressing for a court function appears to be throwing on a clean tunic and pair of trousers, though to be fair, that's about all anyone can really do these days. The Gondolindrim got out of their burning city with the clothes on their backs and precious little else; they've since recouped their losses somewhat, but not much. The survivors of the assault on Menegroth are in a slightly better state, but the only one who ever wears jewels is little Elwing.

Not that she didn't try to share.

Aredhel grimaces as she recalls an incident, when the survivors of Gondolin were first allowed into the city. The High Queen of the Sindar gave the two Ladies of the Gondolindrim pieces of jewelry as welcoming gifts. Aredhel and Idril had hardly been in any position to refuse Elwing's gifts, but they'd soon realized that the jewelry given to them had almost certainly belonged to Nimloth, a suspicion borne out by the news that, not long after the flight of the Doriathrin people, a few had gone back to Menegroth to salvage what they could, and had brought back the late Queen's jewelry box. Wearing Nimloth's jewelry would be highly inappropriate under any circumstances, and neither Aredhel nor her niece ever have, going bare-necked and wristed and fingered instead. Fortunately, someone appears to have explained that situation to Elwing, for the girl has never made comment on the fact. Or perhaps Elwing just knew on her own.

Elwing is… Elwing is… She is possibly the most un-childlike child Aredhel has ever met. She's positively uncanny. Her behavior is totally unlike that of any other child Aredhel has known, nervous and unsmiling and faintly twitchy, forever looking up at all the adults around her with a wide-eyed, watchful expression on her face. Eärendil is the only one around whom she behaves remotely normally, the only one who can make her smile. They learn bits and pieces of their cradle tongues from each other. But Eärendil is huddled beneath a serving table with candied apples and another child, not with her, so Elwing does not smile.

Finally, Eöl spots her staring at him, and he makes his way over to where Aredhel stands, not minding for who sees and not taking his piercing eyes off of her for even a moment. Aredhel becomes aware of her lungs starting to ache and draws in the deep breath they were lacking.

She was curious, so she asked around—and Aredhel will probably never be able to explain why she was curious to begin with. Eöl of Nan Elmoth lived in the woods of the same name. He possesses some skill with magic so he weaved an enchantment around the borders of his forest, not dissimilar from Melian's girdle protecting the forests of Doriath proper. However, his prowess at magic was far from being on equal terms with the Maiarin Queen's, and Eöl was forced to fall back to Menegroth when Nan Elmoth was finally overrun. Aredhel gets the impression that the long years of solitude must have left their mark on him, because he looks as ill at ease here as anyone can be.

They stand at the edge of the room, away from the festivities, and are silent. Eöl's narrowed, piercing gaze gives Aredhel the impression that he might be getting something out of the silence; she herself has found herself evaluating others with precisely that sort of gaze. However, Aredhel gets nothing out of this silence, except the skin on the back of her neck prickling sharply.

Then…

"…You have soot on your face." Aredhel fishes a handkerchief out of her pocket, holding it out to him. "Here."

Eöl's brow furrows. He almost looks confused as he takes the proffered cloth and mops at his cheeks and brow, not entirely sure is he exactly where he missed before. At the sight, Aredhel is irresistibly reminded of days in Valinor, days of her uncle Fëanor and her cousin Curufin coming out of the forge covered in soot. Neither of them ever showed up to court with soot still on them, especially not Curufin, who was a bit fussier about his personal appearance than was his father, but the same could not be said of them when they were just going about in their home, and it was always interesting for Aredhel to get a hug from her cousin and find him still smelling very strongly of smoke and iron and coal, and to pull away and find that he was still covered in it too.

Aredhel resists a smile. She doesn't think that Eöl would at all appreciate being compared to Fëanor, whom very few hold in any level of regard these days, and would probably appreciate being compared to Curufin even less—from what she understands, the two of them knew each other and did not get along _at all_.

"I take it you were working until late this afternoon?" she asks in Quenya.

The smith hands her back her handkerchief, now liberally smudged with soot, which Aredhel folds before sliding back into her pocket. "I had a few commissions to finish up," he replies in Sindarin.

"And I suppose you prefer your smithy to the company of the court," Aredhel jabs experimentally, still speaking in Quenya.

"There are very few things I do _not_ prefer to being here," Eöl says bluntly. "I suspect you feel the same way?"

This time, he speaks not in Sindarin but in the language of the Edain, a tongue Aredhel only knows through Idril, who learned it from Tuor. She has to take a moment to catch her bearings and think before finally answering, in Common Telerin, "Yes, especially when I know how many people with splitting headaches I'm going to have to be dealing with come tomorrow morning." Her niece included, it seems, who's on her second glass of wine and is laughing loudly in response to something a Sindarin Lady is whispering in her ear. Tuor is nowhere to be found; he may have excused himself already.

Eöl smirks, leaning back against the wall. He doesn't look impressed, exactly, but a flicker of respect passes over his face.

"You do good business, then?"

Aredhel can not normally confess herself to be interested in the lives of those who are not her kin; making friends outside of her own family has been rare indeed. But she remembers, as a little girl, entertaining the fancy to become a smith like her uncle. It was a fleeting fancy, only lasting for about a week, but she's listened to enough of Fëanor and Curufin's… lengthy discussions on metallurgy and smithing to follow most of what Eöl proceeds to tell her. His face grows bright and animated, far less closed off than what Aredhel, in her admittedly limited acquaintance with him, has seen. It's charming. It really is. Aredhel didn't think she'd be using the word, but here she is. His enthusiasm for his craft is charming. But it leaves Aredhel's heart aching for the past, and what has been lost to her.

-0-0-0-

"I take it there is some issue with the succession amongst your people?"

The rain came up over Sirion suddenly, sudden as coastal storms are wont to be. They stand in the doorway of his house, watching the rain come down in silver sheets. Aredhel doesn't know, really, what took her feet here when she decided to step out for a walk, but here she is, leaning against the stone lintel, opposite him, and blinking, startled out of the lull of the rain by that eye-narrowed, probing question.

Aredhel searches Eöl's face, wondering what damage could potentially come from revealing the internal matters of her people to a Sinda. She sees interest in his face, and curiosity as well shining out of dark eyes and taut in a broad, sharp jaw, but no malice. Aredhel draws in a deep breath; even talking about this is difficult for her. "Noldorin custom states that the throne of a King passes to the male heirs of the line first, and that if there are no male heirs, then the throne will pass to the late King's closest living female relative."

Eöl's eyes flash as he catches on. "And your lawmakers can not decide whether a sister or a daughter is closer kin, is that it?"

"Yes, it is." She turns to stare back out at the rainy street.

What Aredhel does not say is that, in such a case, it has been determined that it would be better to defer to the female heir who is older, more seasoned, more experienced. She does not say that she has never wished to be Queen of anything, much less of a broken people who fled a burning city. They look to her for guidance and she will give it to the best of her ability, but she does not wish to be their Queen. She does not say that she would support Idril, if Idril ever expressed any desire to be Queen, and Aredhel does not say that she suspects that the reason her niece _won't_ forward her own case is because, somehow, Idril has come to the conclusion that that would rob Aredhel of what is rightfully hers.

_If I could have gotten Turukáno down out of that tower before it fell… If I could have gotten him out of the city… Brother, this wouldn't be happening had you lived._

Aredhel tries to shake those thoughts out of her head. It's true that the Gondolindrim would be far more cohesive had Turgon lived. But Aredhel knows her brother. For all that he shunned the sons of Fëanor, he didn't think much more highly of the Sindar than they did (and as four of them still do); it's highly likely that, had he lived, he would have said or done something by now that would have gotten them thrown out of Sirion by now. Aredhel may love her brother, but she also _knows_ him; after having been a King and leader for so long, she doubts Turgon would have been content to play second fiddle to a little girl-Queen, or even to sit in equality with her.

"Aredhel…" Her eyes snap back to Eöl's face, who is frowning perplexedly at her. "Your niece's son, Eärendil… He is Turgon's grandson, is he not? Why is he not considered Turgon's heir, then?"

At this, Aredhel resists the urge to shake her head and curse, as satisfying as cursing would be when recalling the specifics of why, exactly, Eärendil isn't considered Turgon's heir. She lifts her hand to her forehead, praying that the cool skin of her palm will lend her some calm. "Eärendil… The people will not accept him as Turukáno's heir, on account of his having an Adan father." Her voice is taut with irritation. "They do not wish to have as King one who could possibly grow old and die within the course of a century. And even if Eärendil was fully Elven, we don't consider a member of the royal family eligible to be considered part of the succession until they have reached adulthood; a child inherits _after_ adults, even if that child were the living son of the late King."

This draws a somewhat contemptuous snort from the smith. "Your inheritance customs are incomprehensible to me," he mutters, arms crossed around his broad chest, staring downwards. "Elu chose his heir. We expected Dior to do the same. As he did not survive long enough, we chose his living daughter to be Queen after him. To us, Elwing's age does not make her any less eligible to be Queen than she would be were she an adult in years."

That is what sounds incomprehensible to Aredhel, that anyone would push the responsibilities of leadership and the weight of a crown onto the slim shoulders of a child, that anyone would weigh a frail little girl-child down with the cares of ruling. To be sure, the tasks of everyday government are not left in Elwing's hands, but no one allows her to be a child. They all look to her and expect her to be Queen. Uncanny as the girl is, Aredhel can not help but feel sympathy for her in her heart. But she is still uncanny.

"Eöl… Elwing is… strange," Aredhel says lamely, staring up at him and praying he will understand. Praying that she will finally find another who sees what she sees when she looks at Elwing. Praying that she isn't the only one who finds Elwing eerie and unnerving, and that she isn't just seeing things where none exist.

A scowl comes up over his face and an angry noise escapes a half-shut mouth; Aredhel would swear she hears thunder, but the silver sheets of rain remain yet calm. "Strange?" Eöl's voice catches oddly, between anger and pain. "Of course she's strange. She saw her family, her little playmates, her _people_ , cut down in front of her. All for a thrice-damned jewel, no less."

Aredhel looks away.

_Aye, and 'twas my cousins who did it._

It is impossible for Aredhel to make sense of what her cousins, the seven sons of Fëanor, did in Menegroth. Alqualondë, she rationalizes away as them having been acting under the orders of their father, and Alqualondë Aredhel can not judge them for, for all the blood on her own hands from that terrible Night. But this, this, the brutal slaughter of the people of Menegroth, this they did all on their own. No one forced them to do it. Aredhel knows that her cousins swore an Oath by a name that ought never to have been sworn by, but surely they can not say that _that_ was what forced them to act. They did that on their own.

And three of them paid for it with their lives. Aredhel remembers Celegorm, and Curufin, and Caranthir, cut down in the midst of their rampage. She remembers Maedhros and Maglor and the Ambarussa, still living. Her shoulder crests tiredly against the lintel, and her heart is heavy in her breast. Is it right, she wonders, to still love them after everything they've done, after all the ways in which they've changed?

_Is it any more right for me not to hate myself for what I did, so long ago? I did not have my father's voice at my back, urging me on or threatening to reveal to all the world how disobedient a child I was. Father tried to keep me away, but I could not restrain myself from leaping into the fray with my brothers. I saw my cousins under attack, and leapt to defend them. I did not think. I did not think until it was over, and I had already stained my hands with the blood of the Swan-Elves._

Aredhel straightens, drawing the hood of her green cloak and preparing to walk the short distance back to the palace, rain or no rain. She gets the strong impression that she's not welcome here anymore.

"Wait, Aredhel." Eöl catches her left arm under the elbow. His eyes gleam brightly in the rainy gloom. "This isn't the time of year for walking in the rain."

After a moment, her stiffened back relaxes, and Aredhel nods, and she lets him see her into a side room, where there is a table and chairs and a pit for a cooking fire that floods the room with welcome warmth. When his hand leaves her arm, her skin is tingling oddly beneath her white sleeve, and Aredhel finds that she misses his touch.

-0-0-0-

The months pass, slowly, like water drifting slowly through a sieve. They run together in Aredhel's mind, dreamlike and tortuous.

Painstakingly, Aredhel grows accustomed to living in Sirion, living amongst the refugees of the War, the Kinslaying, the Fall. She walks the streets and knows them all by name; she can get to any one point of the city from another point, without trouble or any need of guidance. She is accustomed to living here.

But she is not home.

Aredhel isn't sure what home is, anymore. Is it Gondolin? Vinyamar? Tirion upon Túna? Is she now indeed houseless, wandering the earth as a houseless spirit would? Once Aredhel wished to wander, but she wishes to wander no longer. She thinks she knows why she wished to wander once, standing upon the walls of Gondolin and staring out into the wilderness, cagey and restless, shaking by an overwhelming desire that she ignored only for love of her brother and her niece. It's why she hopes, hopes, hopes, that she will not experience that desire to wander ever again. She hopes that she will finally find home, but even now Aredhel knows that that hope is a hollow one. _I will never again feel as though I am home. This is the Doom of the Noldor, come home to roost within me. Never shall I find a place to dwell, and feel at home in my heart._

She walks in the streets, and sees phantom shapes walking along ahead of her.

Glorfindel and Ecthelion, two of the very small number outside of Aredhel's family whom she ever considered friends. Golden and dark, light and shadow. Bright laughter and a quiet chuckle. Ecthelion's fosterling is here, living in the city, and sometimes Aredhel thinks that he can see them too; Erestor will stare abstractedly at dust motes in sunbeams, and his lips will move without sound coming forth.

Fingolfin, crushed beneath Morgoth's foot. But Aredhel does not see him crushed. She sees him as the strong, wise father of her girlhood days, before disaster struck and they were all sundered here on this side of the Belegaer. Finwë is with him, and Aredhel can almost hear the sonorous timbre of his voice, before they shimmer and fade away.

Turgon passes before her eyes next, pace brisk and brow furrowed, a stack of parchment tucked securely beneath one arm and a harassed expression on his face. Aredhel knows that look. It's the look he wore every time he was late to a council meeting. She tries to call out to him, but he does not hear.

Other phantoms drift in and out of her line of vision. Elenwë comes to walk at Turgon's side, her hair gleaming wetly in the Sun, but he does not see her. Arakáno swipes a phantom apple from a stall and gestures desperately for her not to tell. Fingon steps out of a shop and smiles at her briefly before slipping into an alleyway with his long-legged loping ease. Lalwen sits on the stoop of a house to re-adjust the fastenings of her boots. Caranthir argues with a merchant over the price of wool. Curufin peeks inside of a bakery, eyes alight with interest at the warm smell of baking bread. Celegorm catches her eye and his full lips curve in a half-smirk, half-genuine smile. _Missed you_ , he says simply.

Arafinwë stares around the city in wonder. Findis shifts her shawl more closely about her shoulders. Indis sits on the steps of a house, lowers her head into her hands and weeps—weeps for her dead husband, her lost children, her lost grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Anairë flits her eyes about in interest, turns them to her daughter, and mouths _Do you think a book could be had in this, Irissë? A romance, perhaps?_ They appear to her as the dead would, shimmering and insubstantial. But these four are not dead, and Aredhel blinks her blurring eyes in confusion.

Her dead and lost living flit about in front of her. Then, a cloud passes over the Sun, and they are gone.

Aredhel's remaining living, she is happier to devote her attention to. Now that things have settled down and they have more or less found a routine, Eärendil's schooling must be seen to. Idril teaches her son languages, Quenya and Sindarin and the tongue of the Edain, written down on parchment; slow going, but they still make progress. For all that Tuor prefers fighting with an axe, he is the one who begins the first of his son's lessons with the sword, pressing a wooden stave into Eärendil's small hands. Aredhel teaches him archery, the only thing she feels comfortable teaching her nephew; she catches him looking up from the courtyard to certain windows, and calls his attention back. A tutor covers everything else.

And often, quite often, she finds her feet taking her down the street where the Sindarin blacksmith lives.

Eärendil loves the snow in the way that no Noldo who survived the crossing of the Grinding Ice ever could, and he loves running down ice-slick streets and playing with the muddy snow. Aredhel chases after him, her cheeks chapped and red and her long hair streaming behind her, running too fast to keep her cloak hood up over her face and just praying that she won't slip on the ice, or that he won't. On those days, if Eöl's not with clients or working in his smithy, she can catch the sound of his voice, rough from shouting, as he calls after them, shouting encouragement to Eärendil to run faster. "It'll be good practice for later life!" he shouts, and Aredhel always pauses a moment to glare at him. He seems not to care much, and smirks in response. It becomes a daily ritual in the winter months. Rituals are comforting now, as they ever were.

For a moment each day in these days, Eärendil becomes Idril in her eyes, and Aredhel is back home in Tirion, chasing her tiny niece through snow-driven streets. She decides that time is not like water through a sieve after all. Time is a stranger milling about in a crowd, vacillating between moving back and forwards. The current can't decide if it wants to run north or south or east or west. She is caught fast in the jaws of the Past, and, weaponless, survives being swallowed by clinging to His teeth. Eventually, the Future comes along and fishes her out with a helping hand. She expects to see her dead again, but Aredhel sees no one but the living, and is relieved.

The summer is more welcome. Aredhel revels in warmth and sunlight and lengthened days, feeling like a summer-growing plant, only ever properly alive when it's warm. If this was another time and place, she'd be planning hunting trips with Celegorm. Eärendil wants to see the shore. He wants to answer the cries of the birds and splash in the water. He wants to show Elwing the glossy pink insides of a conch, and does sometimes, tugging her by the hand down the steep and narrow steps. He wants to stand up to his waist in the brine and stare out into the West, still as a statue, not responding until shaken and eyes open wide as though seeing something visible only to him, frightening his parents and his aunt.

Aredhel will walk down the streets and hear the clanging of metal upon metal, more like music to her than the tremulous trill of a minstrel or even the cries of a bird. She'll hear him, his low voice in sharp conversation with a client. She'll hear him, humming faintly, or singing low to the tunes of some song in a language she's never heard, and the song becomes oddly poignant for its mystery.

And then, she'll see him.

Eöl never ventures outside of his home in the fullness of day. He scowls irritably up at the bright sky, squinting and looking away after a moment, unable to cast his eyes to the flagstones of the streets for how they reflect the light. He draws close to the shadows in the awning, the shadows of his home—all the shutters are drawn and he claims to have more than enough light to work comfortably. He only leaves them slightly open, and only opens them at dusk.

But his eyes will meet hers readily enough, bright beneath a dark surface, and he'll beckon her forward, or Aredhel will simply cross the street to go and talk. And talk they do.

In many ways, when Aredhel probes for information about Eöl's work, his clients, how he gets on with them and the sort of money he makes, she feels as though transported to the past. She feels much as she did with Turgon, needing to get information about council meetings she was barred to attend, needing to know what was going on so she could help him, and wishing, wishing that she could simply ask directly and not have to go about it so indirectly. Even knowing that then is not now, she still finds herself compelled, not by "propriety" but by her own mind to go about things in a terribly circuitous…

"You need not be so indirect, you know."

Aredhel looks up sharply. Eöl smirks at her over the rim of his earthenware cup. The Sindarin words fall easily off of his lips.

"You _might_ find my questions obnoxious," she responds tartly in Quenya, more or less daring him to say why he let her go about it like this for so long.

"Perhaps. But no." Still Sindarin. "If anything, it's rather refreshing. Your level of curiosity would rival that of a child's let loose in a glass blower's shop. Always wanting to look at the facets on the figures the glass blower's made."

He smiles instead of smirks, warmer and kinder, and Aredhel feels her face go red in a blush at the way he fixes her in his long, piercing stare. These visits usually leave her light-headed and mixed up in her head and in her heart, but the more it happens, the more pleasant it feels, and the lighter her steps feel as she heads out on her way.

-0-0-0-

A smile, a laugh. A clasp of the hand, a sharp intake of breath, and the bright, hot sunlight pouring in through the cracks in the shutters, casting bars on the dusty floor. These are the things Aredhel notices on the edges of her awareness as she runs her fingers through his hair experimentally, not wanting to call herself tentative, but cautious nonetheless. They're the things she quickly loses track of when Eöl pulls her up against his chest and kisses her.

 _This is all very abrupt_ —probably the first coherent thought to go through her head all afternoon. But Aredhel looks back suddenly and understands where it came from, and she smiles against his mouth, feeling as though her heart has swelled up with joy and will burst at any moment.

Her head spins with the smell of smoke and coal, she feels lighter than she has in more than five hundred years, and gives not a second thought to propriety or what her family would think when he slips his arm beneath her knees and lifts her up off the ground, and up the stairs.

-0-0-0-

So it goes from now on. Aredhel comes seeking him out whenever she has time to spare away from her living family and he is not busy with his own work—and these two occurrences do not coincide nearly as often as Aredhel would like, not at all. To talk, to commiserate, to complain, in Aredhel's case far more honestly than she ever could with Idril, whom she still, even now, feels the need to shield from the most uncharitable thoughts of her aunt's mind, or with Tuor, whom even now she feels as though she barely knows.

She has no mind for marriage, and much to her relief, neither does Eöl seem to. There's no way that Aredhel could ever explain her desire to remain yet unwed, despite opening up her heart and, as her maternal grandmother would probably say, _'ruining her virtue.'_ Frankly, opening the clasps of her tightly shut heart probably counts as the far more risky of the two things. Aredhel doesn't consider the act of sex a binding contract of marriage; in these times, when the world is falling apart, she knows few who do anymore.

Probably for the best, she muses, that as often as they end up under the same roof, that they don't _live_ under the same roof.

"Eöl, that 'shifty-eyed foreign fortune teller' happens to be my _cousin._ "

"Doesn't change what she is."

"But that was no reason to bar her entry into Sirion when first you came here! I fail to see why being a 'shifty-eyed foreign fortune teller' would be sufficient cause to send Artanis packing! She'd not done anything to _any_ of you!"

"Galadriel was seen speaking with one of your _other_ cousins during the assault. He _let her out_ of the Caves, unharmed."

"Has it never occurred to you that even murderers can show decency? And from what I understand, her husband was allowed safe passage out of Menegroth also, and you didn't try to bar him entry into Sirion!"

"No. Celeborn just decided to go with Galadriel."

"Well I'm glad _someone_ decided to be sensible in this situation. Not to mention decent."

"I beg your pardon? We could hardly take the risk that she was plotting harm against us."

"Eöl, at Alqualondë, Artanis made it dazzlingly clear to _everyone_ that she would sooner kill the Noldor than let harm befall her mother's kin."

"…That changes nothing."

" _What_?!"

Yes, it is probably for the best that Aredhel and Eöl do not live under the same roof. At least they can get away from each other after arguing and clear their heads.

-0-0-0-

"You should not allow others to see your worry, Elwing," Idril cautions gently, waving a quill in the air. "You are a Queen; as much as it may pain you, you must be as a rock to and for your people. You must be a calm influence at all times."

Elwing blinks her huge, quicksilver eyes in such a way as to make the other two utterly incapable of telling whether she understands or not. Leaning against the window, Aredhel looks at her niece and the Sindarin Queen out of the corner of her eye, and weighs her own words in her mind.

For all that Aredhel finds Elwing's air eerie and unsettling, she finds herself often in her company these days. The Sinda often ends up seeking out Aredhel and Idril for advice on how to behave, how to govern and rule when the time comes that she is deemed mature enough to take on the duties of the High Queen of the Sindar and not simply the title. When asked why she was coming to _them_ and not instead Ladies of the _Sindarin_ court, Elwing had shrugged her shoulders, cast her eyes to the ground and murmured _'There's more distance. It's less immediate.'_ Aredhel has no idea exactly what Elwing meant by that, and the fact that Elwing appears to have set her sights on calling Idril 'mother-in-law' is politely ignored.

Young. Elwing is very young, still. Aredhel has to remind herself that quite often, for though Elwing is only fourteen, she looks disturbingly like a full-grown nís, making her persistent tininess all the more jarring. Tiny she is, standing a little less than five feet, but resembles a woman grown. She has sprouted hips and breasts, small things, barely visible, but gently curved as a fourteen-year-old's should not be. Just a month and a half ago Aredhel awoke in the middle of the night to hear a panicked knocking on her chamber door, and opened it to find Elwing there, her tight black curls springing out in every direction, tearfully exclaiming that she was bleeding between her thighs.

Aredhel recalls Idril at fourteen. At fourteen, Idril was the same size as a six-year-old adaneth. Her voice was high and piping. She was not growing at such a rate as Elwing. She was not growing breasts and hips, did not look like a full-grown nís. She _certainly_ had not started her monthly courses yet; most Elven girls do not start their courses until between the ages of thirty-five and forty. But Elwing is not fully Elven. The human blood in her is diluted, but it is there, and who knows what possessing the blood of a Maia, a member of a race that can not even truly be called corporeal, is doing to her physical development.

As much as Aredhel knows she shouldn't, this only makes Elwing seem more uncanny than she already did. She should not mark this up as something against Elwing, who can hardly help the unnatural rate at which her body is growing, but Aredhel can not help it. A fourteen-year-old should not look like Elwing, nor should they think like her. They should be as Idril was, short limbs, running about in the garden wishing to catch butterflies, and in possession of no greater cares than that.

"Lady Aredhel?"

Even speaking in Quenya (because unlike somepeople Aredhel knows, Elwing will speak Quenya), Elwing still uses Sindarin names, Aredhel's noticed. Of course, so does Tuor; she may well have picked up the habit from him. "Lady Aredhel?" A tiny, brittle white hand lights on Aredhel's arm.

The light of the Sun beats on Aredhel's back as she looks down at the little Sinda; her throat grows dry. There is a fey light shining behind Elwing's eyes, she's noticing now. It looks familiar—Aredhel feels as though she's seen it before, seen it in someone else's eyes, but she can't place where or in whom. Elwing stands framed by light, the rays of sunlight catching in her glossy curls. She neither smiles nor frowns. "Ah… Forgive me, Elwing. I was preoccupied."

Her curls shake as she nods. A faint waft of rosemary, pungent and sharp, pricks in Aredhel's nostrils. _Does she use it to scent her hair or her skin?_ "I was just wondering if you would take dinner with me."

Aredhel catches sight of Idril nodding violently; _Yes,_ she mouths, _Do please._ Idril, her aunt knows, is fond of Elwing, either sees no trace of strangeness in her or is content to overlook it, and wants Elwing to be happy. "I… Yes, of course I will."

Elwing's pale pink lips quirk upwards, a shadow of a shadow of a smile, tugging downwards all too quickly. Aredhel remembers that, remembers the day when a shadow of a shadow of a smile was all she could manage too, and suddenly a hot surge of empathy wells in her stomach. It's easy, so easy and too easy to put Elwing in the same category as her younger kin; young, inexperienced, and in desperate need of protection. And she should, at least, make an effort to like her.

As they leave the room together, it strikes Aredhel that she does know where she last saw that particular brand of fell light.

She saw it in Fëanor's eyes, the first time she saw him after he swore his terrible Oath on the summit of Túna.

-0-0-0-

"Yes, that's the fifth time someone's found them. This time behind a tapestry on the second floor, and by _me_ , no less," Aredhel grumbles as she flips her hair out of the back of her dress and smoothes her skirt back down, checking for dust or soot as she does so.

"Oh?" For once when confronted with something unexpected and potentially pretty catastrophic, Eöl sounds not irritated, but amused. "And what did they say to that?"

She snorts. "Elwing said nothing. She simply rearranged her dress and drifted away. Eärendil said nothing coherent for the first five minutes—he mostly spluttered, and I honestly can not tell you whether he was embarrassed or annoyed."

"And this… bothers you."

"I think they should both have a care for discretion," she mutters. For probably the thousandth time, Aredhel wonders how on earth this even happened. Eärendil's attraction to Elwing was immediate and easy to spot, but Elwing herself is far more oblique and opaque; it's well nigh impossible to guess what's going on behind that porcelain-pale, porcelain-smooth face of hers. "And have a care for their own positions." Both of them, Eärendil too but especially Elwing, really do need to be more careful. There's no telling how either of their two peoples would react to a marriage between a Prince of the Gondolindrim and the High Queen of the Sindar, but Aredhel can guess, she can very well guess, how the Sindar would react if their Queen was to get with child and be yet unmarried.

Eöl laughs quietly, slips his arms around her waist. His breath is hot on her neck. "And, uh, what do you think _your_ various, assorted kin," he murmurs in sharp-edged amusement, "would say to our relationship?"

She can play this game. Aredhel flashes a lopsided smile. "Turukáno would be furious. I'm not sure how my other brothers would react." _I have at least three dead cousins, and four living ones, who would be quite furious as well,_ she thinks but doesn't say. "My parents would be utterly aghast."

"And your grandparents?"

"My grandparents wouldn't have a leg to stand on, considering what certain circles of the Noldor, large parts of the Vanyar and the majority of the Teleri think of their own marriage."

"I can just imagine."

-0-0-0-

"Oh, there you are!" Idril exclaims as Tuor practically limps into the study, his step unsteady and arthritic. "I was beginning to think you'd forgotten about the meeting."

By meeting, Idril is referring to a meeting she, Aredhel and Tuor are having with certain other members of the court to discuss improving upon the fortifications of the city. The city walls are looking a bit run-down in places. Hardly surprising; they were built hastily to start with, Sirion having ever been a city of refugees, and not with the best materials. However, Sirion's population is ever-burgeoning, and the threat of an attack hangs ever over their heads. They have the time and the leisure and the responsibility, so why not see to the safety of the people?

Tuor smiles gently at her, pausing to examine a wall-hanging. The white strands in his sandy hair glow in the sunlight. "Not at all." His expression turns absent, his brown eyes heavily glazed. "I just remembered, Idril," he says, heading back towards the door. "I need to go get Annael; I'll be back soon."

He goes, and is gone, and the silence he leaves behind him is enormous.

Annael… Isn't that the name of the Sinda who fostered him as a child? But he's not here, is he…

An alarming sound draws Aredhel's attention away from musings about Tuor.

Idril, Idril who did not weep when Gondolin fell, who did not weep when she learned of her father's death, who did not weep when she struggled to lead a fractured, demoralized people, starts to cry, sobbing hysterically and crumpling against her desk. Aredhel barely manages to get her into her arms before the door swings open yet again.

Aredhel looks over her niece's trembling head, inwardly cringing at this horrible bit of timing. She looks into the eyes of Erestor and Egalmoth, Oropher and _..._

 _What on earth is_ he doing here?

Aredhel finds her tongue long enough to say, "My Lords, I am afraid that we will need to reschedule this meeting. Tomorrow, at the same time?"

They all nod, too bewildered at the sight before them to say anything more. Looking distinctly out of place in a sunlit room, hood drawn up over his head, Eöl stares at them, head tilted slightly away, eyes narrowed, and Aredhel has to mouth _Go. Please go,_ before he'll leave.

-0-0-0-

Aredhel leans against the windowsill, pressing her hand to her forehead. She wonders why she ever does that, since it never does anything to calm her, and her arm falls back to her side. "This wasn't the first time, Itarillë says, not the first time that Tuor's referred to someone either dead or not here as though they're just in the next room and he can go speak to them at any time." She draws a deep, ragged breath. "I'd just never noticed it myself before now, I suppose."

The night bleeds into the room, washing the floor with darkness. Her own white skirt seems to stand out all too starkly here, but then, it always has. Aredhel's always felt too bright, tackily bright, even, for this place.

Putting his tools away for the evening, Eöl sighs and mutters something indistinct under his breath. His shoulders are hunched and bowed; in his own dark clothes, he's half-lost to the shadows encroaching on them both.

"What was that?" Aredhel asks tiredly.

"Nothing."

He says it in such a way… It's not hurried, precisely, nor is it properly nervous. No, it's not nervous at all, really. There's just such a note of finality in Eöl's voice that Aredhel can't help but think that he's said something important, and doesn't like the idea of being denied the right to hear it. She stares at him, so intensely that she's amazed her gaze doesn't burn holes in the side of his head. "No, tell me. I want to hear it."

With a clink of metal against metal, Eöl puts the last of his tools, a hammer, back inside of its box and puts the box away. He turns, and looks at her, his gaze piercing, and Aredhel feels suddenly very small and young. "Aredhel… I've told you that I did a great deal of trading with the Dwarrows of Nogrod and Belegost, have I not?" She nods wordlessly, and he goes on, a dry, rattling chuckle entirely devoid of mirth shaking in his throat. "Yes, I suppose I have told you about that. Just one of the many things I've gone on at length about.

"Dwarrows live very long lives, longer than the life-spans of the Edain, but they are not as us. They do grow old, and they will eventually die of old age." He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, a shadow darker than the shadows around them passing over his face. "Dwarrows are not like the Edain in body. The Edain grow frail as they age; Dwarrows only grow hardier in body as they grow older. However, both of these two races grow increasingly frail in mind as they age.

"My old friends would come to the end of their lives, and when I spoke to them it seemed, again, as though we had just met. They became strangers to me in mind, though their faces were the same. Some would not remember me. The most ancient of Dwarrows might not remember me, their friends and families, or even their own names."

 _What_?

Aredhel's mouth grows dry. Her bones feel as though pierced by ice. "But… Tuor is not old. The Edain of this day can live to one hundred years. Tuor is barely past fifty. He is in mid-life; he is not old."

Eöl shoots her a look that can only be one of sympathy. "They do not always have to be."

She is so very cold. Aredhel imagines it, Tuor growing old and feeble, his mind wandering and his memory going. He will still be good-natured and easygoing even then, she's sure, but he will not be himself anymore. There will be a stranger sitting in his chair, wearing his clothes, wearing his skin, staring out at the world through his calm brown eyes. One day, he'll look up into Idril's eyes, and he won't know her.

And what about Eärendil? Eärendil has grown every bit as abnormally fast as Elwing, having the appearance of a full-grown nér (And judging by his 'escapades' with Elwing, the libido of one as well). What will become of him? Will he grow old before his mother's eyes? Will there come a day when Eärendil looks up at them all, and knows none of them, does not even know himself?

Human mortality… Aredhel feels her stomach doing back flips, and in contrast to the cold in her bones it goes hot and sick. She sags against the windowsill. Human mortality, it's not something that she had ever really contemplated before. Tuor is the only fully-human Adan she has ever really been close to. Aredhel's been aware of how fleeting human lives are, but she's never really had to face it.

Maybe something on her face gave her away—in fact, that's probably exactly it—because Eöl crosses the room in three quick strides and pulls her into an atypically gentle embrace. Aredhel draws a series of long, deep breaths, struggling to calm her pulse. He smells of smoke and coal. It's a soothing smell, one that seems to help her heart come back down from its pounding arrhythmia.

Aredhel pulls away. She briefly rests her hand on the cool, dry skin of his cheek, smiles weakly, and slips back out into the street. She needs to go deal with this now.

-0-0-0-

The sun is sinking over the water, turning it red as the bloody waters of Alqualondë after the First Kinslaying. Idril has chosen for Eärrámë to leave out of one of the quays outside of the city; she doesn't want a crowd, doesn't want to be pressed in on all sides. She's afraid, Aredhel supposes, of the effect a crowd would have on Tuor.

"I wish you would come with us," Idril says earnestly for what must be the thousandth time. They have arrived here first, ahead of the crew of Eärrámë, ahead of Tuor and of Eärendil who has stayed at the city with his father—they will be here soon, Aredhel is sure.

Aredhel crosses her arms about her chest and snorts. "Little silver-foot, I think that if you are planning on petitioning the Valar for aid and pardon, it would be better if you did _not_ have an Elf with Quendi blood on her hands with you. I _think_ that my presence on your voyage to find Aman would be nothing short of disastrous."

Adjusting her cloak clasp, Idril's lip quirks in a disturbingly Fingon-like smile. "And I suppose that the presence of a Sindarin blacksmith back in the city, quite firm in staying where he is, has something to do with your decision to stay here as well."

"I…" Aredhel splutters and stares at her niece, who's almost smiling as she did before Tuor's memory began to fail him and before Gondolin fell.

Idril shakes her head, catching the red light on her pale hair. She positively radiates understanding, something Aredhel isn't sure she should be relieved over or annoyed with. "Aunt Irissë, I did enough 'sneaking around' with Tuor in Ondolindë before we got married to recognize when you started doing it too. And to figure out who you were doing it with."

"No privacy," Aredhel mutters. "No privacy at all."

Her niece nods sympathetically. "Indeed. You…" Idril grimaces "…you certainly know how to pick them, don't you, Aunt?"

"Oh, hush."

Footsteps echo on the wood of the docks behind them, and Aredhel and Idril turn to see Tuor, Eärendil and the small crew of the Eärrámë heading up towards them. A small, dark-haired head bobs behind Eärendil and Tuor. Aredhel's eyebrows shoot up towards her hairline. Elwing, it seems, has decided to come with them.

Idril's hand clutches at Aredhel's shoulder. "I want them to heal my husband," she whispers urgently, her eyes wide open and alight with desperation. "Surely they can do that."

Aredhel is not particularly reverent. Neither is Idril. Neither of them think of the Valar as all-knowing or all-powerful. They're both agreed that the Valar don't seem to know much at all, all things considered, and even if they can heal Tuor's mind, Aredhel can't see Idril being able to convince them to actually do it. Frankly, Aredhel can far more easily see the Valar killing Idril for violating the Noldorin Exile, and killing Tuor for setting foot on Aman as a mortal Man. But Aredhel nods, tips her head down and whispers, "Go in peace. Good luck."

Idril and Tuor give their farewells to their son, and to Elwing. They and the crew of their ship board Eärrámë, and sail out of the quays, into the sunset, and into the West, out of the tales of Men and Elves.

-0-0-0-

Rain batters against the walls, the roof, the windows. Another quick storm off of the Belegaer. Aredhel hopes it's not interfering with Idril and Tuor's already-perilous journey. Of all the things that could end with her niece and her niece's husband dead, Aredhel doesn't like to think of a hurricane being the thing that kills them. She silently sends up the hope that Uinen will calm Ossë's wrath before he can do any real damage.

"Hold still."

Elwing flinches as Aredhel runs the brush through her hair again, and Aredhel is irresistibly reminded of the way Idril behaved when having her hair brushed. She hated having anyone else brush her hair, claimed that they were hurting her and pulling too hard on her scalp. Elwing, Aredhel supposes, has slightly more cause to complain than does Idril, considering that Elwing has curly hair, and that curly hair seems to be far more prone to tangling than does straight hair. But still, Elwing is a bit… fidgety.

Probably understanding, considering she's getting married in all of two hours.

Aredhel doesn't know why Elwing insisted on having Aredhel and Aredhel alone help her get ready. It might have something to do with Aredhel being Elwing's soon-to-be-husband's only female kin still living on this side of the sea, but they've barely said anything to each other at all today, and Elwing doesn't seem interested in talking.

Though the cultures of the Noldor and the Sindar (before the Noldor came back to Beleriand, anyways) are highly divergent relating to weddings and betrothals, but the Sindar and Elwing have consented to having a Noldorin-style wedding ceremony, with the allowance that the court is present and that they need not go through a long betrothal first. It was rather amusing to see the way Eärendil jumped at the chance to dispense with at least a year-long betrothal period before marrying Elwing.

It seems strange, to have them being married now. They're the both of them not even thirty; if they were fully-Elven they'd still be young children, and Aredhel can't help but think of them both as children in her head. But they aren't children in body or mind; an official coronation ceremony, little more than a formality but still important, was held for Elwing in the past month. Eärendil is nearly done with the building of his own ship, Vingilot.

"Do… Do you think that this is frivolous?"

Aredhel is startled by that question, and even more startled by the almost guilty look on Elwing's face. The older nís sets the brush back down on the vanity, and sets her hands on her lap. "What do you mean, Elwing?"

The young Queen and bride-to-be shrugs uncomfortably, running her fingernail over the beads sown into her skirt. "Getting married, I mean. You don't seem all that set on marrying—" Ugly red color floods into Elwing's cheeks and she looks away.

Aredhel resists the urge to slap her forehead and snappishly ask if everyone knows about her "state of affairs." Instead she nods, swallows, and says quietly, "The world's falling apart."

Elwing seems to understand. "The world's falling apart, and you don't want to worry about things like weddings and marriage and being legally bound to someone who could theoretically be killed the next day.

 _You are remarkably insightful. I suppose it will come in handy when you have to deal with dissembling aristocrats in your court._ Aredhel almost smiles. "Something like that. …But I do not think it frivolous for you to wish to marry Eärendil."

"I'm glad." Elwing's face lights up in a wide, open smile, and in this moment she seems the most normal Aredhel has ever seen her: a young girl, about to be married and glad of that. "I want to marry Eärendil. Even if Noldorin wedding customs are rather strange."

She slides out of her seat and goes to pull a small sandalwood coffer out from under her bed. Aredhel has a hard time seeing what Elwing's taking out of it from the angle she's at, but it looks like a piece of jewelry wrapped in white linen cloth. _Another piece from Nimloth's collection? Perhaps what she wore at her wedding to Dior?_ Elwing unwraps the jewelry from the cloth, and suddenly the room is flooded with light.

Elwing turns about to reveal that she has hung a necklace about her throat, and dazzling with blinding brilliance at her breast is a jewel that Aredhel recognizes all too well. "I think I will wear this at the ceremony," she decides happily, the beads on her skirt tinkling as she brushes it down. She is suffused with light, radiant and less substantial than the gauzy curtains at her window. There may as well be light in her veins in place of blood.

Aredhel nods numbly, having to turn her gaze away from the Silmaril to keep from weeping. She is reminded of her childhood in Valinor. She is reminded of her grandfather's death, the Kinslaying at Alqualondë, the cold of the Grinding Ice, the desolation of Beleriand. More than that though, she remembers her first day in the city. She sat atop a stone in a courtyard, tired and exhausted, her clothes and hair all down in dust. Bereft of anything else to do, she drew her sword and pulled her whetstone from a pocket in order to sharpen the blade.

The sunlight caught on the blade and she was blinded, feeling as though burned.

That's how she feels now, washed with the light of the Silmaril. Burned. Burned with the present, and with the past, and with the specter of the future hanging over her, like some great bird waiting to swoop down on her, and carry her away.

**Author's Note:**

> Note #1: I know there's potentially a bit of a disconnect between Eöl's behavior in my "canon" fanfiction and here. The way I see Eöl is that he's a mostly normal person, pleasant to people he likes and unpleasant to people he doesn't like, and that only rarely does the sheer creepiness he's capable of shine through in full. In canon, he seems to view Aredhel and Maeglin more as possessions belonging to him than as people with free will (with the caveat that characterization does not appear to have been Tolkien's greatest concern in writing The Silmarillion), but I suspect that this attitude probably grew greater through living alone in Nan Elmoth, where the only other people were those subordinate to him. As much as he probably doesn't like it, being forced back into civilization and being forced to interact with other people on an equal footing on a daily basis, first in Menegroth and then in Sirion was probably did wonders for his social skills. The sheer atmosphere of Nan Elmoth and its impact on those who live there also seems suspect; by the time Eöl is living there, the trees are described as having grown so tall that they completely block out the light of the sun; that's not usually a herald of good and wholesome things in fiction.
> 
> Note #2: I know the suggestion of the Valar killing Idril and Tuor for violating their various Exiles from Aman may seem harsh to some. I will just remind you that in The Silmarillion, they toyed with killing Eärendil for the same reasons.
> 
> Irissë—Aredhel  
> Itarillë—Idril  
> Turukáno—Turgon  
> Arakáno—Argon (Since he died before he could choose a Sindarin name, and only the later chronicles refer to him as Argon, I can't see Aredhel calling him that)  
> Arafinwë—Finarfin (Similar to Argon; he didn't come to Middle-Earth until the War of Wrath, and didn't have to come up with a Sindarin name until then; he wouldn't have one before that point)  
> Artanis—Galadriel
> 
> Adaneth—woman of the Edain (Sindarin)  
> Adan—Man (plural: Edain) (Sindarin); referring specifically to the Three Houses of the Edain  
> Nís—woman (plural: nissi)  
> Nér—man (plural: neri)  
> Quendi—Elves (singular: Quendë) (Quenya)  
> Ondolindë—Gondolin


End file.
